Florida Republicans Not Interested in Election Reform: April 26, 2001 McKinney: "Florida More Important in 2004 than in 2000!" (WASHINGTON, DC) Although Kathy Harris, Republican Secretary of State for Florida came to Washington, DC to testify in favor of election reform and fairer elections, in November 2000, when she had a chance to establish a fair election, she and the other Republican leadership of the State of Florida, did just the opposite. Additionally, as the Bush team makes its 2004 reelection calculations, Florida once again looms larger than life in the making of the Bush Presidency. A key player in the 2000 election in Florida, was the Choicepoint company. Using lists of misdemeanor offenders in Texas, Choicepoint "padded" the Florida list of ineligible voters to include more ineligible voters than there actually were in Florida. This resulted in thousands of blacks not being allowed to vote in the Presidential election. This, joined with the high number of thrown-out ballots and a Supreme Court decision that stopped the ballot counting, resulted in a Bush victory in Florida. It is clear that Bush did not win Florida. Any effort that counts all votes cast and allows all registered voters to vote will result in a Bush defeat at the polls in Florida. We must pay attention to every aspect of voting: from the districts that will soon be drawn, to the casting of the votes that will elect representatives for those districts, to the counting of the votes for those candidates. "Because of Florida I can guarantee you that people whose relatives and ancestors and friends got beat up and died for the right to vote will be watching this process very carefully, and we will not allow a repeat of Florida 2000," McKinney stated. |
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